MasterCard to face EU anti-trust probe - Bloomberg

European anti-trust watchdogs are gearing up for another battle with MasterCard over the card scheme's fees, Bloomberg reports.

EU regulators may send a statement of objections to MasterCard before the end of July, said the newswire, citing unidentified sources.

In September, MasterCard lost a seven-year battle with the European Commission over the validity of its interchange fees for cross-border card payments, following a decisive judgement at the EU's highest court.

The rationale behind the latest salvo from the European Commission is not known, although it is likely to focus on MasterCard's 'honour all cards' rule, which obliges merchants to accept all flavours of the company's product line.

Any intervention by the Commission would be the precursor for another round of legal battles and possibly heavy fines if the card scheme is found to have violated the rules.

Related Companies

Mastercard

Channels

Retail banking

Keywords

Cards

Comments: (1)

A Finextra member 19 May, 2015, 08:58

1 like

Cannot be a probe into the honour all cards rule. This rule will cease to exist when the new interchange fee regulation becomes valid in Europe. Under the new legislation valid later this year, the acceptance for EU issued cards is per product category, i.e. debit, credit, prepaid or commercial in any combination the merchant chooses. The probe must be about the international cross border interchange fees, i.e payable interchange fees when e.g. USA and Russia issued cards are used in Europe.